Once the Polynesian had settled the archipelagos along the eastern frontier of central Eat
Polynesia, no more island groups lay directly to the eastonly, way off to the southeast, the
sprinkhng of tiny islands from Pitcairn to Rapa Nui. Exploratory parties that may have kept
probing eastward for still more archipelagos would therefore have been sorely disappointed by
the empty seas they found. The strategy of eastward expansion which had brought their
ancestors so far across the Pacific had run out of islands. Since the eastern frontier of their
island universe had been reached, and they knew that the islands "below" them to the west were
already settled, might some particularly daring sailors have set out to explore unknown seas to
the north?

This is not conjecture. Polynesians did temporarily occupy some dry and barren atolls of the Northern Line Islands located just north of the equator, and of
course colonized the Hawaiian Islands, over 1,800 miles northwest by north of the Marquesas.
Although Tahiti was long thought to have been the source for d-ic migrants who first settled
Hawai'i, comparative analyses of Hawaiian and other central East Polynesian languages which
indicate that Hawaiian is basically a Marquesic language has led to the hypothesis that the first
people to settle Hawai'i came from the Marquesas Islands. Although this hypothesis may be
challenged on the basis of a more complicated settlement scenario involving initial colonization
from the Cooks or Societies followed by the repeated arrival of canoe-loads of Marquesans that
gave the resultant language its Marquesan character, let us here assume that the language
connection points to the initial settlement of Hawai'i from the Marquesas. What, then, can be
said about the voyaging conditions between the two groups?

Despite the vast stretch of open ocean that lies between the two archipelagos, the sail fiom the
Marquesas to Hawai'i looks relatively straightforward because of the favorable alignment of the
route in relation to the trade winds as well as the large navigational target presented by the long
Hawaiian chain. This is not to say, however, that canoes could easily have drifted to Hawai'i
from the Marquesas. Neither computer simulation studies nor our own experience in sailing
from Tahiti to Hawai'i supports such a scenario; in ordinary conditions a canoe departing the
Marquesas would have to be intentionally sailed to Hawai'i. In good weather the passage would be
relatively fast, however. As the Marquesas group lies well to the windward of Hawai'i, a canoe could sail there on a broad reach, the most favorable sailing angle for a double canoe. Assuming fairly steady trades
such as those enjoyed during the 1976 and 1980 return voyages of Hokule‘a from Tahiti to Hawai'i, and a relatively
direct heading, a canoe should be able to cover the 1,800-plus miles between the two
archipelagos in some fifteen to twenty days, although extended doldrum conditions, adverse
winds along the way, or a meandering course could easily add a week or two to that time.

The 1995 reference course and sail from Nukuhiva to Hawai‘i

Why, however, would Marquesan voyagers have sailed so far from their islands, angling slightly downwind on a course that would be dffficult to retrace toward islands
they had never seen? We know from the independent testimony of two English beachcombers-Edward Robarts and a man known only as "Wilson"- who jumped ship in the Marquesas and lived there during the first years of the nineteenth century that even at that late date Marquesans were setting out to
find and settle new lands and that they seem to have left without intending to return. In his
diary, Edward Robarts wrote about Marquesan families setting off in canoes to find fertile and
uninhabited lands, while Wilson told the visiting American naval commander David Porter that
during his stay in these islands some 800 men, women, and children had left in search of
islands on which to settle. Although Robarts did not state in which direction the canoes sailed,
Wilson specified that canoes set off downwind in search of land to the northwest.

Some of these early nineteenth-century Marquesan emigrants are described as having been
forced to leave their valleys by population pressure, war, and drought-induced famine to search
desperately for new islands on which to settle. Yet the first people to reach Hawai'i from the
Marquesas may not have been driven to flee their islands by such dire circumstances, for they
settled Hawai'i almost 2,000 years ago, presumably before the Marquesas would have become so
crowded and conflict-ridden. Perhaps just the lure of new lands lying over the horizon may
have been incentive enough for the more adventurous to set sad. The English beachcombers
described how the tau'a, the shamanistic priests of the tribes, would exhort their people to take
to their canoes by recounting the visions they had received of fertile, wefl-watered, and
uninhabited islands lying over the horizon. If such exhortations were anywhere near as common
in the past as they seem to have been in the early 1800s, it seems likely that over the previous
centuries many a canoc-ioad of the adventurous would have been willing to commit themselves
to a one-way, downwind voyage to the northwest-particularly if previous efforts to explore the
seas to the east had found them to be empty of archipelagos.

Were any signs available to the Marquesans that land might lie far over the northern horizon, or was the discovery of Hawai'i the result of a lucky landfall by seafarers
searching randomly in the unknown northwest quadrant? That the sight of Polaris might have
led the first settlers to Hawai'i is an intriguing suggestion made by Hokule‘a designer Herb Kme
and Abe Pi'ianai-a, the veteran seaman who sailed on the canoe from Tahiti to Rarotonga.
Although in the Southern Hemisphere Polaris lies out of sight below the horizon, it can be seen
soon after crossing the equator. Kane and Pi'ianai'a accordingly imagine that voyagers who had
headed off to the northwest would, after safling over the equator, have become transfixed by the
sight of a star low on the northern horizon they had never seen before, one that remained almost
stationary in the sky, inscribing around the north celestial pole a tiny little circle that was
only slightly larger 2,000 years ago. They further speculate that the fascinated voyagers would
have taken this star, known in Hawaiian as Hoku-pa'a, or “immovable star,” as a sign that
land lay in that direction and would therefore have headed directly toward it on a northerly
course that led them inevitably to the Hawaiian chain. If the great volcanic peak of Mauna Loa on
the island of Hawai'i was in eruption at the time, its fiery glow might even have provided a
homing beacon for any such voyagers.

Another possibility is that seafarers set a course for Hawai'i by watching the flight path of
migratory shorebirds that each year, after sojourning during the Northern Hemisphere winter
in the Marquesas, set off for their breeding grounds in Alaska. Three such migratory species are
of particular interest: the Pacific golden plover (Pluvialis fulda, Kolea in Hawaiian); the bristle-thighed curlew (Numenius tahitiensis; Kioea); and the ruddy turnstone (Arenaria interpres, ‘Akekeke).
The golden plover is especially well known in Hawai'i where they can be seen to flock together
just before the annual migration and then, after wheeling around in the air, to head off en masse
toward the north. Although parallel observations have not yet been made in the Marquesas, it
seems likely that the plover or one or both of the other species may exhibit the same behavior
there. If so, observant Marquesans could have converted the flight direction of departing flocks
into a star bearing toward the land they knew must lie somewhere over the northern horizon.

A direct course from the Marquesas to Alaska would, however, pass to the east of Hawai'i,
probably too far away for detecting land, unless strong northeast trades and accompanying ocean
currents north of the doldrums forced an exploring canoe far enough to the west to bring it
within sight of Hawai'i-or within range of the daily flight patterns of terns or other land birds
flying out each day from the islands to fish at sea. Alternatively, if migratory birds regularly
fly from the Marquesas to Hawai'i before turning due north for Alaska, a possibility that has yet
to be investigated, their heading from the Marquesas mi'ght have given the islanders a direct
bearing to Hawai'i.

A return voyage from Hawai'i to the Marquesas looks much more dffficult than one from Hawai'i
to Tahiti because the Marquesas group lies so far to the east of Hawai'i. A canoe sailing from Hawai'i would have to make almost 900 miles of easting to reach the Marquesas. Sleek,
weatherly yachts have to be pushed hard against the wind to make it to the Marquesas; during
the attempts to gain maximum easting while on the way to Tahiti in 1976, 1980, and 1985 the
closest Hokule‘a has been able to get to the Marquesas was in 1985 when she passed about 375
miles to the west of the islands. Fach time the track of the canoe in the northeast trades was
headed almost directly for the Marquesas, but then curved off to the south-southwest when
Hokule‘a encountered the southcast trade winds. This situation, plus the apparent lack of any
Hawaiian traditions of return voyaging to the Marquesas, has discouraged speculation that there
might have been any two-way voyaging between the two archipelagos.

Nonetheless, in Hawai'i we have recently been wracking our brains to come up with a viable
strategy for safling to the Marquesas for a very practical reason. Nainoa is now directing a new
project to sail Hawai‘i-Loa, a reconstructed canoe launched in 1993 that was made as much as
possible from native materials, from the Marquesas to Hawai'i in order to recreate a "discovery
voyage." Since Hawai‘i-Loa was built in Hawai'i, some way must be found to get her to the
Marquesas in order to be in position for the run to Hawai'i. Discussions for sailing the new
canoe to the Marquesas have focused on three main options: using spells of southerly and
westerly winds that occur periodically in Hawaiian waters during the winter to try and gain a
thousand or so miles of easting before turning south for the Marquesas; leaving Hawai'i during a
speff of strong, winter trade winds, in hopes of encountering northeast instead of southeast
winds south of the equator, as sometimes occurs that time of year or sailing directly to the
Tuamotus, and then using westerly wind shifts to work north-northeast to the Marquesas. All
these strategies have their problems, however: the spells of southerly and westerly winds that
occur during the Hawaiian winter are unpredictable, often short-lived, and sometimes dangerously stormy; we know of no way to predict when the winds would be northeast in the
vicinity of the Marquesas; and, as we learned in 1987, sailing from the Tuamotus to the
Marquesas would be highly dependent on getting just the right wind shifts.

Just recently, a fourth option has emerged from an encounter with southerly winds during
Hokule‘a’s fourth crossing to Tahiti while sailing to Rarotonga to take part in the Pacific
Festival of Arts that was held there in 1992. As the southeast trade winds flow across the
equator toward the doldrums trough, they become more southerly, typically blowing from south-southeast. When Hokule‘a encountered these south-southeasterlies on previous crossings, except
for brief tacks to the east the canoe was kept sailing to the west of south to make maximum
southing in order to reach as quickly as possible the more easterly winds to be found south of
the equator. In 1992, however, the steady, light winds encountered just below the doldrums
came almost directly from the south, a direction which, if the canoe had been kept on the port
tack, would have quickly driven it far to the west. Accordingly, it was decided to use these
southerlies to go over on the starboard tack and sail east in order to gain additional easting. This
tactic brought the canoe almost to the longitude of the Marquesas before she was put back onto
the port tack to sail westsouthwest until more easterly trade winds could be reached. Since
≈could probably have continued to sail due east across these southerlies until she had
made enough easting to make a direct slant across the southeast trades to the Marquesas, this
experience suggests that whenever such subdoldrum southerlies occurred in the past it might
have been possible for resourcefid sailors from Hawai'i to have used them to reach the
Marquesas.

Of course, at present we do not know whether homesick Marquesans, or adventurous Hawaiians,
were ever able to exploit these subdoldrum southerlies, or any other wind conditions, to sail to
the Marquesas. Given, however, the difficulty of the route and the lack of any obvious evidence for two-way communication between
the archipelagos, at this point of time it is perhaps advisable to stay on the skeptical side about
this issue. A successful, two-way experimental voyage between Hawai'i and the Marquesas,
particularly if accompanied by newly discovered linguistic, archaeological, or traditional
evidence of back and forth movement, would, of course, force a reconsideration of the
possibility that Hawai'i may have once been in two-way communication with the Marquesas as
well as Tahiti.

1995 Voyage to Nukuhiva

[All dates subject to change; call the PVS office before making plans to attend or participate.]

Jan. 2, 1995: Hawai‘iloa and Hokule‘a will be relaunchwd after modifications and maintenance work are completed for the 1995 voyage;
Pier 36, Honolulu.

Feb. 3 -6, 1995: Hawai‘iloa and Hokule‘a will sail from Honolulu to Hilo.

Feb. 8-Mar. 17: Hawai‘iloa and Hokule‘a will sail from Hilo to Ra‘iatea; they will meet four other Polynesian canoes (Hawaikii-nui from
Tahiti; Te Aurere from Aotearoa; Takitumu & one other canoe from the Cook Islands) for the
re-dedication of Taputapuatea Marae in the district of Opoa.

Mar. 20-22: Hawai‘iloa and Hokule‘a will sail from Ra‘iatea to Tautira, Tahiti, with the four
other Polynesian canoes.

Mar. 29-ApL 12: Hawai‘iloa and Hokule‘a wiill sail from Tautira to Taiohae, Nukuhiva, with
the four other Polynesian canoes.

Apr. 17-May 12: Hawai‘iloa and Hokule‘a will sail ftom Taiohae, Nukuhiva, to Kualoa, O‘ahu, with the four other Polynesian canoes.

May 13: Welcome Home for Hawai‘iloa and Hokule‘a / Welcome to Hawai'i for the Polynesian Canoes; Ke'ehi Lagoon.

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